Bengals owner Mike Brown: Late run made a difference

Bengals owner Mike Brown saw the reports, three games from the end of the season, that coach Marvin Lewis was done.

Then he saw the Bengals last two games.

In an interview with Jim Owczarski of the Cincinnati Enquirer, Brown said that wins against the Lions and Ravens long after the Bengals were eliminated from the playoffs helped him feel comfortable with bringing Lewis back for the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

“I chose not to make a decision on what we were going to do going forward until all the evidence had been submitted,” Brown said. “And that meant playing through the full season and not making a call prematurely. I would say that while we had serious reverses and they were unsettling, to put it mildly, we bounced back at the end of the year. We beat two teams that were in playoff runs. We beat them in games that were important for them where they gave their best shot and I was impressed how we rebounded. That played into what was in my mind when I had to make a final call.”

The Bengals struggled in a number of areas this year, but Brown said he viewed those issues as “correctable.” And he also made it clear that after meeting with Lewis after the season, he thought they were at least close enough to being on the same page that it was worth proceeding.

“Well, there are issues. They are countless. We discuss them all,” Brown said. “More often than not, way more often than not, we agree. There are occasions when we’ll see it differently. Quite often I permit him to go forward when I don’t necessarily see it the same way. Occasionally, I will say no, it’s going to be this way. It’s a mix of all that. That’s a day to day part of the business.

“One of the good things is we understand each other. While we aren’t always eye-to-eye, when we sit down I’d like to think when he leaves the room we have it set to go forward in a way that’s agreeable to both of us. I think that’ the general outcome. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think it’s healthy.”

Brown obviously thinks so, since he allowed Lewis to remain the second-longest tenured head coach in the league despite the lack of a playoff victory.

Late Run??? They were already eliminated from the playoffs for that “late run”!! Did he not see the 2 games prior while in contention that they got smoked by Chicago at home and Minnesota on the road?? UNREAL!! I am a Bengal fan and this is an absolute JOKE

I’m a Ravens fan and I can tell you that final game had nothing to do with Marvin and everything to do with Dean Pees and his wonderful schemes.

Everyone who has watched this game without the kool aid knows that the middle of the field is always open in Pees’ concepts. You want a completion? Throw down the seam because I promise you no one will be there.

On that final play Andy actually made it more difficult by throwing to the outside shoulder instead of the inside, where there would have been zero chance Mosley or anyone else could have made a play on the ball. But I guess Dalton just wanted to create a split second of drama so he threw it where he did. Still the main point is that a high school football team could have completed the pass on that play and it took a Herculean effort on the part of Joe, Collins (the Offensive MVP) and Greg Roman’s patchwork offensive line run scheme to even come back in that game.

So the question with Pees is never if he’ll blow a lead in the fourth quarter it’s when and to whom. Just happened to be Marvin this year but I promise you if it was Hue Jackson with Keizer or any other team he would have blown it just as easily.

That’s what he does and Harbaugh and all the other apologists are just lying when they talk about what an amazing throw it was, or how improbable the completion was and it was an amazing play.

It wasn’t.

It was 4 verticals against cover 3.

Pretty basic.

But hey Mike Brown gets to save time and money on interviewing candidates so I guess everyone wins?

Lions fan here; I started my football fandom when Wayne Fontes was the coach. He was a great coach, TBH. He almost made the Super Bowl in 91 with Erik Kramer at QB. He made the playoffs with Kramer, end-of-the-line Dave Krieg, and Scott Mitchell as his starting QBs.

After that, the Lions front office let nearly every good player walk. If they had even a mediocre GM in the 90s, Wayne Fontes and Barry Sanders might have been right there with the Cowboys and 49ers.

How Mike Brown just explained his day to day with his coach is exactly how I’ve always envisioned their relationship. Last two games, no pressure. This is a joke. Lewis would be a great GM if Brown would give it up.

For all the stuff that Mike brown is cheap, he isn’t — at least as threatening players and coaches. I think Lewis makes $6 million a year which is right there with most coaches. I also bet that new coaches like Vrabel,nagy, etc. didn’t get more than $3M so if he wanted to save money he could have. Also, this year there were no “genius” assistant coach who everybody says you got to get this guy, like McVay and Shanahan last year.

The real problem is Brown puts continuity and loyalty above all else. Although the last two years has shown that new coaches don’t always mean upheaval and no chance at the playoffs, Lewis has never bashed him or blamed the front office rules (no free agents to fill in holes unless nobody else wants the guy). Unfortunately, that seems to trump Lewis’ pathetic records against the Steelers (8-24), in prime time, and winning teams. How can you keep a guy who can’t beat your biggest rival? And especially when Bengals fans are so up in arms against the team, and even if they trade for the No. 1 pick of the draft, if they get 25,000 per game it’ll be a shock.

As I have said here several times this last year, this is a repeat of the mistakes of the 1990s. What the last two wins represent is what is called in Cincy as “Dead Cat Bounce”, where once the season is over and pressure is off, they win out.

Mike Brown waited to the end of the season to see what next year’s season ticket sales were going to be like before making a decision. Not enough people bailed on the Bengals, so Marvin is back.